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This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Background

As diagnostic tests for COVID-19 were broadly deployed under Emergency Use Authorization, there emerged a need to understand the real-world utilization and performance of serological testing across the United States.

Methods

Six health systems contributed electronic health records and/or claims data, jointly developed a master protocol, and used it to execute the analysis in parallel. We used descriptive statistics to examine demographic, clinical, and geographic characteristics of serology testing among patients with RNA positive for SARS-CoV-2.

Results

Across datasets, we observed 930,669 individuals with positive RNA for SARS-CoV-2. Of these, 35,806 (4%) were serotested within 90 days; 15% of which occurred <14 days from the RNA positive test. The proportion of people with a history of cardiovascular disease, obesity, chronic lung, or kidney disease; or presenting with shortness of breath or pneumonia appeared higher among those serotested compared to those who were not. Even in a population of people with active infection, race/ethnicity data were largely missing (>30%) in some datasets—limiting our ability to examine differences in serological testing by race. In datasets where race/ethnicity information was available, we observed a greater distribution of White individuals among those serotested; however, the time between RNA and serology tests appeared shorter in Black compared to White individuals. Test manufacturer data was available in half of the datasets contributing to the analysis.

Conclusion

Our results inform the underlying context of serotesting during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and differences observed between claims and EHR data sources–a critical first step to understanding the real-world accuracy of serological tests. Incomplete reporting of race/ethnicity data and a limited ability to link test manufacturer data, lab results, and clinical data challenge the ability to assess the real-world performance of SARS-CoV-2 tests in different contexts and the overall U.S. response to current and future disease pandemics.

Details

Title
Real-world utilization of SARS-CoV-2 serological testing in RNA positive patients across the United States
Author
Rodriguez-Watson, Carla V; Sheils, Natalie E  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Louder, Anthony M; Eldridge, Elizabeth H; Lin, Nancy D; Pollock, Benjamin D; Gatz, Jennifer L; Grannis, Shaun J; Vashisht, Rohit; Ghauri, Kanwal; Valo, Gina; Chakravarty, Aloka G  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Lasky, Tamar; Jung, Mary; Lovell, Stephen L; Major, Jacqueline M  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Kabelac, Carly; Knepper, Camille; Leonard, Sandy  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Embi, Peter J; Jenkinson, William G; Reyna Klesh; Garner, Omai B; Patel, Ayan; Dahm, Lisa; Barin, Aiden; Cooper, Dan M; Andriola, Tom; Byington, Carrie L  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Crews, Bridgit O; Butte, Atul J; Allen, Jeff  VIAFID ORCID Logo 
First page
e0281365
Section
Research Article
Publication year
2023
Publication date
Feb 2023
Publisher
Public Library of Science
e-ISSN
19326203
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2775220962
Copyright
This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.